Saturday, October 20, 2012

Here are a mix of helmet cam and point-and-shoot photos from the Master Cs (my race) and various Bs and Women's As (I believe). Super fun day on a really cool course at the Northern State Recreation Area just east of Sedro Woolley. It's the site of the old Northern State Mental Hospital and thus a fitting venue for a 'cross race. Great job and thanks to Ryan Rickerts, Cascade Cross, Marshall Will, Jim Finch and Skagit Bicycle Club for another amazing event!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Shout out of thanks to the Skagit bicycle club for having me as the featured presenter-type person at their Annual Meeting. What a great group of folks!Alderwood REI is next, on Tuesday, Oct. 23. (Next week!) I'd love to see you there! Wanted to mention why I didn't end up racing last Sunday's Klicks Padden Duathlon as planned. When I woke that morning to howling 30 to 40 m.p.h. winds--the first real windstorm of the season--it was pretty much a no-brainer: I ain't racin' on them heavily forested back trails at Lake Padden. I've already been hit by one falling tree and ended up in the ER sporting a bloody goatee (see below); I didn't need a repeat performance. Read about that here.

Looking forward to Saturday's Woolley Cross down in Sedro-Town. Should be fun 'n' muddy!

Friday, October 12, 2012

With Cascade Cross's Thriller Cross moved to December, I'll instead throw down, as it were, at Sunday's Klick's Mountain Bike Duathlon at Lake Padden. It's a race I've done many times and yet am always surprised at how absolutely painfully hard it is. You get done with the first 2.6-mile run lap and right away you're climbing up, up, up and more up the Expert MTB loop. And of course the race finishes with another 2.6-mile run lap.

The above shot is at the finish of the 2009 race, during which I rode my single-speed and shot a helmet cam video with my old, grainy-ish GoPro camera. See the video below:

Adding to this year's fun is the weather forecast: rain and wind for the first time in months! Glenn G., Bryan S. and I pre-rode the course a couple days ago when it was Eastern Washington-dry-as-a-bone; we surely won't have them conditions on Sunday. Lookin' forward to it, nonetheless. First race with the new carbon 29er fork!

A tie-dyed Johnny Boy Clark during the 2009 race.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who came to last night's REI Redmond slideshow--it was a fun time! Next up: Slideshow presentation at the Skagit Bicycle Club's Annual Meeting on Oct. 17. Looking forward to it!

Sunday, October 07, 2012

With Galbraith, Chuckanut and Lookout mountains so close to Bellingham, we don't ride Blanchard Mountain nearly as often as we should. It's just that little bit farther from town and to really explore its charms--of which there are many--it'd end up being a six-hour day, which we can't always do.

So early on Saturday, we loaded up John's truck with bikes and gear (including Darrell Sofield's way-useful Amazing Map of the area), drove to Lake Samish (where we parked) and pedaled toward the Summerland Road entrance of the Pacific Northwest Trail. (C-c-c-c-o-l-d too, like 30s.) From there it was following white blazes on trees and rocks up, up, up, up, up via mix of dirt road and singletrack, eventually hitting the way-steep-in-spots British Army Trail which delivered us to Lizard Lake.

A lovely bench on the Lily Lake trail offers the opportunity to swim a few laps.

From there we traversed the mountain, picked up way-fun Max's Shortcut and Larry Reed trails and made our ways to the Overlook. The view was absolutely breathtaking (a huge plus of leaving really early--7 a.m.--is that morning sun is perfect for photos): islands, water, fingers of land poking this way and that and it seemed we could see the curvature of the earth. Wowzer!

Tight squeeze in John's truck.

Return was gravel road B-2000 to the Lily and Lizard Lakes Trail which has got to be one of the longest sustained singletrack climbs around here. We got off the mountain via Alternate Incline, one of my all-time favorite descents and one on which I put my new carbon 29er fork to the test. (It'll be interesting to see how my upper body feels in the upcoming days.)